Law & Justice Center issues addressed

Wednesday

Jan 9, 2013 at 12:34 PMJan 9, 2013 at 12:35 PM

Cynthia Grau

The Building/Renovation Committee of the Livingston County Board met Tuesday evening to discuss ongoing issues with the Law and Justice Center, as well as a new one from the probation department on the first floor of that building.The noise complaints from the judges are still being sorted by the committee, as in the past, engineers have taken readings of the noise levels in the building and they have fallen into acceptable standards, although the judges and other staff in the building still have trouble hearing during court cases when the cooling towers are running during warmer weather.Daryl Bragg, who handles the heating, ventilation and air conditioning for the building, said that a new possible solution has been looked into and priced.“The pricing has come to $17,762.90 for acoustical work at the Law and Justice Center, including installation. Work is for the north tower only, including the discharge for the tower and installing the acoustic wall. The first tower will be done and if needed, the south tower will be done later,” he explained.The committee approved the measure and sent it to the full board, which meets Jan. 17.The money will come from the Law and Justice Center contingency fund, which has more than enough to cover this work, plus the work that may need to eventually be done for the south tower.Director of Probation Services Mike Shaughnessy approached the committee, speaking about the noise issues he and his staff have been experiencing in their department, which is on the north side of the first floor of the Law and Justice Center.Shaughnessy said that his office has 11 workstations, much like cubicles, in one room. Ten can be utilized at one time. Noise levels, he says, for people speaking on the phone, no matter how strong their voices are, gets “past irritating,” describing it as disruptive, saying that it changes some of his employees’ attitudes. “With the people we already deal with, I have enough concerns with their attitudes, let alone dealing with my staff having a negative attitude,” Shaughnessy explained.Some of the issues that came up with trying to fix the situation is that the partitions on the cubicles are at maximum height, and dividing those cubicles into separate rooms after adding walls would need to have possible adjustments made to heating, cooling and sprinkler systems in the office.One possible solution offered was the use of white noise.“One of the challenges with the building is that it’s so quiet. The whole building,” Jack Hayes of FQC, the construction management company, said. “In an open office like that, it’s exaggerated. If there’s always a bit of background noise going on, whether you’re on or off the phone, your hearing becomes less in tune to what’s going on on the other side of the cubicle from my experience in those types of situations.” Hayes added that although he’s not a designer, he thinks it may be a better solution and should be tried first, “since it is probably the least expensive.”Bragg told the committee he would look into the pricing of a unit, which would be a small box and speakers set up around the room.